“Bike paths, it’s a fact that they make communities a better place to live.”

Sam Skinner, president of Beverly-Waterford Growth and Revitalization, couldn’t be more right, as local residents who take advantage of other bike and walking paths in our communities can attest. It is a wonderful thing to be able to safely get out and enjoy nature in your own backyard.

With plans for a new multi-use trail in Beverly to be built this year, residents there should soon have the same opportunity.

A $1.2 million grant from the Ohio Department of Development’s Appalachian Community Grant Program — and support from the Village of Beverly, Ironton-Lawrence Community Action Organization and the Buckeye Hills Regional Council, among others — will get things started. Phase one is expected to run from the bridge connecting Beverly and Waterford, to just past Fort Frye High and Beverly-Center Elementary schools.

But the aim is for the trail to grow.

“We hope to make it bigger … but we’ve got to find the money,” Skinner said.

That’s where support from other organizations can make a difference.

The folks at the Ohio’s Wonderful Waterways Initiative understood what a gem could be built in Beverly. Surely soon others will, too.